Reflections Inspired By Rita
by Princess180
Summary: After reading a Rita Skeeter article, 25 year old Ginny Weasley reflects on the Boy Who Found A Reason To Live.


_A/N: This is odd, I will not lie, but inspiration hit. Perhaps I'll post, perhaps I won't.  
_  
I've just finished Rita Skeeter's latest article; **Boy Who Lived Finds Reason To Live**, with the lovely subtitle that I still love to read; _**Potter to Wed**_. It's flowery though, and that boy they talk about? I've never met him. Harry's not that person. Never has been. Oh, he's twice as handsome as she says he is, and his eyes are a thousand times more striking... but the person behind those eyes?  
  
Brave? Yes, more so than anyone I've ever met, but not because he wants to be. And never because he's not afraid. Harry's afraid, oh so very afraid- but he loves so much, too much, some might say that he overcomes his fears every time, and the shields go up and he's the Boy Who Lived for an instant. But for that instant only.  
  
Caring? Of course, but in such a different way- so much more human than he's made out to be. He's cautious with his affection- he knows the blood spilled by a slashed heart. He loves as if he doesn't want to, someday, as if I've tricked him into placing that gorgeous ring on my finger and uttering those two words. But he's found his family, that sad little boy asking to get to the Platform fourteen years is no more an orphan than I in so many ways. He has brothers and a sister, Ron, Neville and Hermione are all my siblings have ever been to me for him. A father- Hagrid in so many ways. A mother- Molly Weasley, who knows she will never take Lily's place, who never tries to anymore. And me... the woman who loves him more than she ever imagined possible- even as an infatuated child and later teenager, now woman so deeply in love that I can no longer see the cliff from which I fell as soon as I was old enough to understand what had happened the day I was born so many long years ago. Since I could hear tales of the Boy-Who- Lived, garbled as they might have been.  
  
Sad? On a level beyond most people's comprehension. Perhaps even slightly beyond mine- I knew and loved my father. Learned his faults. Heard his scolding. Basked in his praises. Learned how I am like him and how I am not. He lost them so early- he has heard his entire life he is like them, but fears, at night, when he no longer has to hid beneath his shields and lies with me beneath satin sheets, that he will never know if this is true. He wonders if he truly looks like his father, if he truly has the compassion of his mother. If those startling green eyes that seem to scream 'Harry' with their every cell were once actually hers. And I cannot tell him if they were or were not. I cannot tell him that they would be proud of him. I cannot reassure him by promising they are somewhere, loving him and watching over him. I can reassure him only with kisses and caresses, touch whispering things that words would not dare convey.  
  
Dark? Yes, deep down, in the hidden corners or him he wants to forget, he still holds darkness that he must live with. He still has the anger I remember of fifteen year old Harry. The deep, unshakeable hatred. The power like steel. But those parts of him, the have grown up with the rest of him, now they fit like streaks of black in a white marble statue, part of him that cannot be laid aside but can no longer rule over him. A part of him that I have seen a thousand times as he blasts curses at the few Death Eaters who have survived the past eight years since he defeated their lord. It comes out when he gets angry- even with me- his eyes are a darker green, not that of sun filtering through leaves in summer, but that of the Forbidden Forest at night. Sometimes that scares me a bit, and then I just plunge deeper into his mind, I won't be scared any more. I refuse. I will not run from him, or myself. I'm not that little girl with a diary in hand.  
  
In love? The love she describes in this article- nothing is further from the love I know. We were not _'bright and shining stars in the darkest twilight moments of the war'_ as she describes us. We fight, we throw things at each other, we scream that we hate each other. We are as far from perfect as it is possible to get while still retaining the perfection. During the war he was scared of me at times and clung to me at others- I was as terrified to be hurt by him as he was to hurt me. But we bit back our fear, deeply, inside, something told us that we loved each other... that love was worth the repercussions if we went out and got ourselves killed. Perhaps, just perhaps, that is why we have stuck together through all of this... perhaps that is why my heart still flies against my chest when he walks through a door. But we do love each other still, more than I can tell in words, I understand him, he understands me. I wake up in his arms after a nightmare, he does the same. We don't say 'I love you' much, we just know now. When this was new, I would tell him all the time, and he would do the same, to be sure that this was real. Now, it is old, but never dull, never to be left alone.  
  
Yes, Rita Skeeter has certainly never had an encounter with the real Harry Potter. Perhaps she never will, and I like it that way. I want to keep him all for myself. And soon, in only three months, he will slide a second ring on my finger... and it will be forever. Because even though I can't be sure I'll see him again when we are finally forced to part I'll always have a tiny part of him, and he will always have a tiny part of me. 


End file.
